One of the Westcountry’s best known business park operators, forced into administration in a national banking scandal, are re-building their empire after winning a multi-million pay-out as part of a court settlement.

Plymouth-based London and Westcountry Estates, set up and run by Michael and Diane Hockin, has been re-born as Hockin Gold.

Their son Christian, the company’s director of development and management, was joined this week by South West Devon Conservative MP Gary Streeter for the opening of a new business park on the edge of the city.

Match Mill on Newnham Road in Plympton has attracted six new tenants, from car businesses to a large modern veterinary surgery.

The former snooker hall that was once owned and run by Brian Hearn, part of the Barry Hearn boxing promoting family, was bought by the Hockin family in 2015, at the height of their battle with banking giant RBS.

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That fight came to a head in a court hearing in 2017 which ended three days into a scheduled five-week trial in London’s High Court when the bank offered substantial undisclosed damages to settle a £30 million compensation claim by Michael and Diane Hockin.

They had been missold a complicated interest rate “swap” which allowed RBS to dramatically increase interest on a loan and force the company into administration. It meant the loss of a number of business parks, including the firm’s flagship, Faraday Mill in Plymouth, and a five-year battle for justice with the help of their lawyers Manchester based Berg.

But yesterday the family put that behind them with the opening of Match Mill, the third new business park that Hockin Gold have developed as part of its fight-back in the world of property ownership and rental.

There is another park in Plympton and one in Falmouth. Christian said: “When the chips are down some people give up. My father didn’t give up. He stood up for his belief that he was in the right and we are now at a new beginning. Even in his mid-70s he’s still going strong and fighting hard.”

The new park was developed by Christian and the company’s building and engineering director Andy Fletcher doing most of the heavy work themselves.

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“The administrators had taken away vast amounts of capital and thus staff, and we had to do everything ourselves. Now we are able to add more help from people and sub-contractors because the lettings are going well,” he said.

They turned the former snooker hall and car park – which started life as a factory owned by food giants Heinz – into a unit for new businesses beginning with car sales specialists, The Professional Car Agents, run by Darren Coles and Matthew Stott.

The other tenants now include It’s the Vets, an independent veterinary practice Project Stainless Ltd., which does specialist metal and chrome work, Hemmingbirds, a merchandising and clothing business, Volcare, a Volvo specialist mechanic and Westcountry Wedding Cars and Limos. Two units, offering a further 5,000 square feet of space, are still available however there are companies showing good interest.

Christian said one of the challenges the Hockins faced was paying full business rates on the site while it was still in development with the site producing little revenue when they purchased it.. And he called on local authorities to do more to help nurture new businesses, warning that small firms and particularly retailers, were under huge threat from multi-national giants with their head offices outside of the UK.

He said: “Businesses – including those in city centres as well as on business parks – need nurturing. They have got to compete with the likes global giants such as Amazon. Some of those big companies are paying smaller percentages in UK taxes, everyone else is paying full rate and they cannot compete. You only have to look at city centres, they are being hit hard, while they still have to pay high rates and continuing staffing costs”

Christian said Hockin Gold aimed to help its start-up businesses get established because that was good for his company as well as for theirs.

“If you nurture people through the hard times then they succeed and everyone wins,” he said. “That’s our approach.”

The irony for the Hockin family is that they and hundreds of other small and medium sized businesses around Britain believe their bank, RBS, took a completely different approach with them. The bank has been accused of seeing its business customers as a source of easy money during the banking crisis of 2008 driving many to the wall and snapping up the proceeds.

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The Hockin family's new venture marks their business re-birth after the banking scandal which drove them into administration (Image: Penny Cross)

MP Mr Streeter paid tribute to the tenacity of the Hockin family in taken on RBS. He said their business had been treated “appallingly” by the bank. He assisted the family in taking on RBS, raising the issue in Parliament a number of times.

“Some of those bankers who were involved should be in jail,” he said. He added: “It is so good to see that the family are still providing exactly the kind of business premises that are so important in a city like Plymouth, boosting employment and creating wealth.”

The RBS scandal, which involved hundreds of business customers across the UK, has seen a wholesale shake-up at the bank but it is still not fully resolved. In February the Treasury Select Committee published a 350 page report commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority which detailed “widespread inappropriate treatment” of small businesses by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group, resulting in “material financial distress”.